Kakao Is Said to be Merging with the Second Largest internet Portal, Daum.

Kakao Is Said to be Merging with the Second Largest internet Portal, Daum.

Kakao, the creators behind the most popular messaging application service in South Korea and the second most largest Internet portal, Daum, have recently announced a merger, in order to crate a company that has been estimated to have a market value of over $3 billion.

Daum Communications, the operators of portal Daum.net, stated that this merger with Kakao, should be completed sometime during October through the use of share swaps.

Reasons.

The main objective behind this recent move was for “enhancing core business and creating business synergy”, Daum stated during a regulatory filing. It stated that the swap ration had been set to be at one Daum Share for 1.55 Kakao Shares.

Kakao Talk has a registration of over more than 140 million people worldwide, which include some 35 million South Koreans, being its most strongest supporting customers, and more than 90 percent of the country’s smartphone users.

Founded during 2007, Kakao has as of yet to go public, but it shares are traded over the counter within Seoul and it has an estimated market value of over two trillion Won (1.9 billion).

The company’s founder Kim Beom-Soo has a a total of 53.6 percent stake of control over Kakao. Chinese Internet giant Tencent has also an amount of 13.3-percent stake on Kakao as well.

Daum was initially founded during 1995, with approximately over 30 million users and has been valued to be at some one trillion won on Seol’s tech-heavy Kosdaq stock market.

South Korea has become one of the worlds most connected countries, with over 37 million people owning a smartphone device, from a total of 50 million population.